A most enjoyable evening for a teacher retiring after 38 years’ service at the same school. Very moving tributes to her work with over a thousand children over this time.

The dancing was terrific – often managed to get to the end of a move just before the music, and a little pause before the next. Here they are doing the Cumberland Square Eight.

We did a couple of mixers – Lucky 7s and the Blaydon Races – and they mixed with gusto. Andrew managed to get through all the verses of the Blaydon Races, with Greg’s lovely harmony! And most of the verses of Paddy McGinty’s Goat in the Belfast Duck!

The band sounded very punchy, and we finished with the Drops of Brandy, which seems to get more impossibly fast every time we play it …